Advent-ure Day 16: The Shepherds Hurry to the Manger

In 2nd Corinthians 6, we are reminded that God wants to meet us where we are and that He is inviting us to experience His salvation, without delay:
1We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.2For He says: "In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you." Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.3We give no offense in anything, that our ministry may not be blamed.4But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God...
We can consume significant chunks of time engaging in idle activity that does not lead to spiritual growth. Perhaps you have heard the message of Jesus, but have never taken the step to follow Him in salvation, to make Him the Lord of your life. God is giving us the opportunity to experience Him more deeply, without delay.  He is calling us to respond to Him - as He has spoken to our hearts, He calls us to know that He is available to us, desiring to bring us into a fulfilling relationship with Himself - in salvation, or in a pathway to spiritual maturity.

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In Luke chapter 2, we now look at the response of the shepherds to the glorious announcement that Christ was to be born.  They wasted no time as they went to see the Christ Child.
15So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us."16And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger.

The shepherds were told the news, and it only makes sense that they wanted to see for themselves, whether in an investigative sense, a sense of wonder, or all of the above.   Their curiosity was aroused, for sure, but there was something more, a desire to see and know the truth.

And, that's where we should all be as believers, wanting to go deeper, wanting to discover more about who Jesus is and how He desires to operate in our lives, to know and experience His love and to take His truth and apply it to our lives.

For us, we recognize that God is central to our lives.   According to director Ridley Scott in the movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings, well, not so much.   The Plugged In review of the movie on its website states:

God is obviously a big part of the Exodus story. And while Ridley Scott doesn't make Him central here, to both his credit and detriment the director does give Him screen time.

I have seen online discussion about the portrayal of God, or one of His messengers, as a child in the movie.  As the review says:

He either is God or he speaks directly for Him, calling Moses to his sacred work and triggering the plagues as well. This God is powerful … but is shown to act like a petulant, willful child.

Plugged In goes on to say that:

Scott also leaves open the possibility that God is a figment of Moses' imagination—a hallucination brought on by the rock that hit his head. No one but Moses can see Him, of course. And when the plagues are in full force, Ramses' advisors suggest they might all be the result of naturalistic causes. Even the parting of the Red Sea feels more like a weird-but-still-natural anomaly, especially at first, than a supernatural event.

Of course, we know that the director is not exactly approaching the story from a religious perspective.  The review states: 

"The biggest source of evil is of course religion," he told Esquire in 2012. When the interviewer pressed him on the point, Scott said, "Can you think of a good one? A just and kind and tolerant religion?"

Ted Baehr of Movieguide writes on the CNSNews.com website that:

Director Ridley Scott’s new epic, EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS, tries to follow the Bible, but it does so in a manner that avoids the richness of the biblical story and could be summarized as the Cliff Note version of a comic book version of the story of Exodus. The best that can be said is that it’s gloriously junky, with magnificent battle scenes and spectacular special effects, but diminished by mediocre character development and an annoying lack of setup of biblical events.

He does say this, and I agree: "In the final analysis, therefore, what the Christian community and others of faith and values, including Jews, should do is help people understand the true story of how God set His people free. Reading the Bible after seeing EXODUS was thrilling. So, be prepared to hand out copies of the Bible or just the Exodus story."

So, what looks on the surface to be a Biblical epic is turning out to be an epic fail in the area of truth. But, it was number 1 at the box office on a relatively slow movie weekend, so people are going to see it.  And, this may give us an opportunity to get more familiar with the incredible story of a man God used in His plan to free His people - it is truly all about Him!

I do want to add a word about that world-record live nativity scene that I referenced yesterday in the context of my contention that the birth of Jesus was a huge event that was performed by a God who specializes in doing big things.   I mentioned that it was part of a Mormon campaign called #ShareTheGift.  Blogger Tim Challies issues this word of caution:

...This campaign is meant to reclaim Christmas as a religious holiday but also to serve as a gateway into Mormonism. At the end of the video is a brief testimony by Steven Sharp Nelson of The Piano Guys who shares what Christmas means to him and who points to a second video titled “He Is the Gift.” This video, in turn, leads to a page at Mormon.org that shares why you, too, ought to become Mormon.

As I said, you’ve got to be careful what you share online. What looks good at a glance may harbor some deep concerns.

He also shared these important truths:

This video reminds us that Christians—true Christians who hold to the true gospel of the Bible—are not the only ones who use biblical language and who sing the great hymns of the Christian faith. Mormons sing many of the same hymns as we do, though they often change the lyrics to remove any references to the Trinity or to otherwise make them palatable with Mormon theology. (e.g. Where in “Holy, Holy, Holy” we sing “God in three persons blessed Trinity” they sing “God in his glory, blessed Deity.”) Mormons claim to be Christians and to honor the Bible; they speak of Jesus as their Savior and Redeemer and claim that he is the only begotten son of the Father; they proclaim a gospel of faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Spirit, and persevering to the end. But they also deny the doctrine of the Trinity, they deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, and they deny justification by grace alone through faith alone. Though they proclaim that they are Christians, in reality they are Christ-deniers. We do not need to apologize for this and cannot over-emphasize it: Mormons are not Christians. Yet they share just enough of our beliefs that they can masquerade as Christians if we do not look deeper than the surface.

Which helps to return us to the actions of the shepherds in response to the angels' announcement of the birth of Christ.  I don't think that they were skeptical and just wanted to verify the angels' claim - they just wanted to experience what the angels referenced.   They wasted no time in travelling to discover firsthand the wonder of a Savior.

Some takeaways for us today:

For one thing, we can of course be challenged to be seekers of the Lord and what He has in store for us. The shepherds heard the message and set out to experience it for themselves.  God is calling us to know Him more deeply and to experience his wonder for ourselves.  He wants us to know not just about Jesus, but He is calling us to really know Him.

And, keep in mind that there will be messages in the culture that may seem to be consistent with Biblical truth, but actually are not.  I have given two examples today of media products, if you will, that seem to be Biblical on the surface, but in fact, do not deliver in a manner that is Scriptural. God can give us wisdom and discernment to be able to distinguish what lines us with His Holy Word.

Finally, God does not want us to wait to experience Him in a fresh way.  The shepherds "came with haste" to see Jesus.  We can spend significant amounts of time thinking that we might need to do something to improve our spiritual condition, but if we don't take the proper and prudent action, we will end up just wishing we had done more.  God does not want us to have regrets about our spiritual activity - we can take the necessary steps to come to know Him more deeply.  He will guide us by His Spirit and His Word.